Subways
by gypsum
Summary: You know you're from Los Angeles when the New York City subway system confuses you.


This is story crosses-over (is that a verb?) _Boomtown _and _Law & Order.  _I originally wrote it for a _Law & Order _site, but as this section of ff.net is rather desolate, I am putting it up here for fun.  Because I don't know anything about Los Angeles geography, its justice system, and California law, I'm reluctant to write _Boomtown_ fic set in LA.  But I am perfectly happy to throw _Boomtown _characters in New York City.  

Anyone who has ridden the NYC subway on an "off" day will greatly appreciate this.  Now imagine that you're not familiar with New York.  

  
  
_"Where is he?" Jack McCoy grumbled, staring out his window at the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, the boats chugging under their broad expanses, cars sweeping around the roller-coaster curves of FDR Drive, the Brooklyn Heights skyscrapers across the river, the low-slung docks on the Brooklyn waterfront stretching into the river towards Manhattan. Impatient, Jack bit his lip, whirled around in his chair so he faced Serena across the desk.   
  
"Probably lost," she said, epitomizing tranquility. Her legs crossed, her hands folded, pale blue eyes as serene as the Hudson on a clear day, unworried, like she had nothing else she could possibly be doing right now other than waiting for an LA County Deputy DA named David McNorris to appear. McNorris, responding to concerns raised by the Manhattan DA and defense counsel over an extradition request, had flown to New York to straighten things out. Jack didn't care that much, but the defense attorney was going ballistic and the judge wanted to make it the New York County DA's problem.  So Jack responded by making it the Los Angeles County DA's problem.  
  
Jack sighed, confused about how anyone can get lost in a city with a grid pattern and numbered streets. Surely McNorris would call him if he were going to be late. The man sounded professional in a slick Wall-Street-sort-of-way when Jack spoke with him over the phone.  
  
His phone ringing. "DA's office," he said.  
  
"This is McNorris," said the California DA's light, silken voice. "I'm lost."  
  
Oh, my God, Jack thought. The man had a law degree. Jack had briefly discussed the caselaw pertaining the LA County prosecutor's extradition request, and he was bright, quick as whip on his feet, one of those brilliant attorneys who could have gone on to make millions had his heart not been in criminal justice. How could anyone so smart be so dumb and get lost in New York City? _  
  
  
What was I thinking? The one thought swirling in LA County Deputy District Attorney David McNorris' head as he stared at a New York City subway map in despair, sweating in the heavy, humid air of the subway station. His shirt clung to him, his breath felt labored in the stuffy air that surely had not seen the light of day for years. Bad idea, he'd realized, standing on an A/C train platform at Penn Station. A bad idea ever since his plane landed at Newark airport and he'd ridden a bus into Manhattan, a sluggish crawl through the Holland Tunnel, where about six lanes of traffic merged into two, bottlenecking like you wouldn't believe. Once in the city, they'd traveled faster, plowing up long avenues to beat the synchronized traffic lights, darting in and out of traffic. The flight, the traffic, the desperate rush permeating the city had fried David's brain. He felt strung out. He was done, and it had only just begun.  
  
The fetid smell of sweat and exhaust almost made him dizzy. The humidity, horrible outside and worse in the subway station, sucked out his energy and gave him a headache. Looking down into the tracks, muddy from yesterday's rain with garbage rotting in the brown water, almost made him nauseous. Flying across the country to follow up on a lousy extradition request did not seem like as good an idea now as it had been a week ago.   
  
David frowned at the subway map. The multiple letters on the same line. The colorful lines zigging across the map, skittering from east to west, north to south, with no discernable order. How in hell does one get to the District Attorney's office? The ADA with whom he'd spoken to over the phone – Jack McCoy -- advised him to take the 6 train to the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall stop. He saw it on the map, on a green train line. He was on a blue line. He did not understand how one travels from the green to the blue. They crossed at 51st Street, but David, at 34th Street, thought it inconvenient to go north. He saw that much sense in the chaotic subway system.   
  
"How do I, uh, get to the 6 train?" he finally said, raising his voice above the saxophone player near the stairs, forgetting about his dignity and asking a college student for directions.  
  
"Take the Downtown A to 14th Street and then take the L to Union Square. There you can transfer to the 6."  
  
An A train approached the platform, screaming, rattling, and at last groaning to a halt. The shrieking of the brakes pierced David's eardrums, a horrendous sound like something was dying under the wheels. Cringing, he climbed on the train. Him and three-dozen other people, who pressed around him. At least the train was air-conditioned. Thank God for that. He heard the hiss of brakes releasing, the train lurching forward, the conductor announcing the next stop over the garbled PA system. A few minutes later, the train jerked to a halt. David saw "42nd Street" on the tiles outside the window. He always thought the streets numbers increased as you went north. Had he caught an uptown train?  
  
The train then stopped at 51st Street. Fuck, he was traveling uptown! In a panicked moment, his mind raced. He recalled seeing on the map how you could transfer to the green line from the blue line at 51st, so he hurried off the subway and searched for signs indicating the green line stopped here. He found nothing and despaired. These New Yorkers! God forbid they could build subway lines making sense. His search for the Lexington Avenue line only yielded another subway map, and he saw how one blue line split from the other and connected to the green. The E line branched off and headed towards the river, while the A and C lines continued in a northward direction. The E crossed the 6, not the A or C. They should at least make it a different color, David thought, bitter.   
  
"Don't panic yet," he told himself, and followed the signs for the downtown A. He'd take the girl's advice, riding this to 14th Street. About ten minutes after he found the correct platform, light cast from the headlamps of an oncoming train filled the tunnel and then the C train screeched to a halt beside him. He wasn't sure if he should catch it – after all, he'd been told by ADA McCoy and the girl in Penn Station to take the A, so he let it go. Then an A train roared past on a different track without stopping. Ten minutes later, another C train appeared. Dare he ask for directions again? And it would sound like an exceedingly stupid question. He should just take this train and hope to hell it went to the same place as the A. Turned out the C merely followed the A and ran local, while the A ran express. David sighed, slumping against the seat, wishing the MTA had done a better job advertising local verses express train or McCoy had warned him of it.   
  
At 23rd Street – a local stop only -- a scraggly guy who looked like Jesus and had bagpipes slung over his shoulder climbed into David's car and made speech about how he had no money, how he struggled to support himself and his three children and his pregnant wife, and then he began playing the bagpipes. Paralyzed, David sat frozen in his seat, the sound rattling his ears. Holy shit, he thought, shaking. He looked around. No one else on the subway appeared fazed. They continued reading their books, speaking with friends, or staring into space with that New York look warning people to leave them the hell alone. After his plaintive Scottish tune, the man walked up and down the car, holding out his hand. Some people gave him money, others ignored him. David couldn't even think straight anymore, his thoughts muddled by the bedraggled bagpipes player and the mindblowing sound of bagpipes in a small space and the blood and adrenaline rushing in his ears  
  
The train groaned to a halt at 14th Street, David's stop. Still shocked, ears ringing, he scrambled off the subway and noted the bagpipe man following him. Nervous, he sped up his walk, running up stairs and, to his relief, finding signs for the L train, an "L" in a gray circle. Something where it was supposed to be. The signs led him through the station, decorated with gray and white tiles and little bronze sculptures of people and animals and a memorial for the police officers who died on 9/11, and then he plunged down a flight of stairs to another platform. The signs marked this as a Canarsie-bound L. David waited, waited, watching as the platform filled with impatient New Yorkers. He averted his eyes from a pair of gay men making out against a support column.   
  
An announcement from the PA system grabbed everyone's attention. "Due to a stalled train at 6th Avenue, there will be no service on the L line between Union Square and 8th Avenue. There will be no L service between Union Square and 8th Avenue."  
  
"Does that mean this train isn't going to Union Square?" David asked a fellow traveler. Again, despair leapt at his throat. For about the sixth time today. This city.... no wonder the people who lived here were insane. The city made you insane.   
  
"That's what it means, buddy."  
  
Oh, Jesus, David thought, following the grumbling crowd up the stairs. Confusion and frustration and concern swirled around in his head and chest. Sweat oozing down his back and his stomach. His blood pressure rising. He didn't know whether to hit something or what. Why was it so hard to get to the fucking DA's office from Penn Station? He flipped open his cell phone, but saw he got no service. No service underground, of course. Should he figure out from a map what he should do next, but the map, with its many colored lines criss-crossing over the city, confused him. For lack of anything better to do, David pushed his way through the turnstile and climbed out into the light. Blinking as the sun stabbed his eyes, he gazed at the towering skyscrapers forming endless canyons on all sides of him, disoriented. He was a deputy DA in LA County. He should be able to figure this out. Glum, he stood on the corner of Fourteenth Street and 8th Avenue, gazing across 8th at a Starbucks. He crossed the street, waiting for the light to change and feeling a little weird about that because no one else waited for the light to change. David walked into the Starbucks, ordered an espresso, and flipped open the cell and scrolled down to Jack McCoy's number. Feeling like an idiot, he called the New York prosecutor.  
  
"DA's office," said McCoy's gravelly voice.  
  
"This is McNorris," David said. "I'm lost."  
  
"You're lost?" said McCoy. The ADA probably thought he was an idiot.  
  
"I'm at 14th Street and the L isn't running, so I don't know how else I am supposed to get to the 6," David said as smoothly as he could. Concealing frustration, speaking as though this was no big deal, a problem everyone suffered. They probably did in this city. He didn't intend on confessing to taking the A the wrong way or not realizing the C ran local while the A ran express, but they followed the same track. Salvaging what dignity remained, for subway wheels had crushed most of it.   
  
"14th and what?" said McCoy.  
  
"8th Avenue. I'm in a Starbucks."  
  
"You can take the A or C to Chambers Street and walk to the office," McCoy said dryly. "It's only like two blocks."   
  
"That's an okay neighborhood?" asked David, wary of a neighborhood he did not know and warier of walking through New York City streets. Everyone in LA had warned him about how dangerous New York was when he'd left. And no one in LA walked anywhere if they could help it.   
  
"It's the Financial District and City Hall," snorted McCoy, as though he suppressed laughter. "It's fine."  
  
"So, how do I do this?"  
  
McCoy gave him some directions vis-à-vis riding the subway to Chambers Street, walking East past City Hall Park until he reached Centre Street, following that past the federal district court and the New York Supreme Court, and then turning right on Hogan Place.  
  
"I don't know…." Said David, worried about determining east from west and north from south. This city made you dyslexic. Wandering around New York, lost on foot, concerned him. And he'd seen maps of Lower Manhattan, tangled streets that could easily become an urban jungle.   
  
"Look, don't bother… I'll come rescue you," sighed McCoy. "Just wait for me in that Starbucks, okay?"  
  
"Okay," said David, deliberating whether he felt relieved or annoyed. Really, he should be able to figure this out, but he did not want to. Well, fate, or Jack McCoy, had swept it out of his hands. The New York County ADA was going to rescue him. At least David would not have to worry about running all over this city, lost and confused, and worry himself into a frustrated lather. He sipped on his espresso and waited in the safety of Starbucks. At least they had one civilized thing reminding him of home in this place.


End file.
